File No. 761.94/133
Minister Reinsch to the Secretary of State
Peking, October 12, 1916.
With respect to the application of the most favored nation clause to the concessions obtained by Japan in Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia by the Sino-Japanese Treaty of May 25, 1915,66 I have the honor to submit the following observations:
It seems to this Legation that the privilege of the most favored nation should be claimed and applied in liberal terms to any rights granted in the Chinese provinces with respect to residence, trade and general interests affecting the rights and the pursuits of individuals.
In the Convention concluded between China and Japan in May 1915, the Japanese Government secured the grant of rights of residence and trade in the interior of Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia. In the course of the negotiations and since the completion thereof, this Legation has assumed, vis-à-vis the Chinese Government, whenever the question has incidentally arisen, the principle that rights thus granted would automatically accrue, by the operation of the most favored nation clause, to the benefit of Americans and of the subjects of other nations having treaties containing that clause. Representatives of the Chinese Government have thus far not made any objection to this interpretation: as a matter of fact, they seemed to be in accordance with it, as well they might be in a desire to prevent the creation of exclusive alien-national spheres in any parts of China.
[Page 286]In the conversation reported by the American Ambassador at Tokyo in his telegram of August 21 last,67 of which a paraphrase was transmitted to the Legation with the Department’s instruction No. 490 of August 22, the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs is stated to have said:
* * * so far as the Sungari River is concerned, Japan has always contended that China’s grant of the rights of navigation to Russia ensued automatically to the benefit of Japan and all other nations which have most favored nation treaties with China; that Russia had agreed now not to nullify this claim but that the matter had not been completed yet and as the agreements had not been finished they had not been published but would be as soon as completed.
The new understanding with Russia on this point is here represented as a concession of the validity of the claim that the most favored nation treaty applies to the navigation of the Sungari to the benefit of Japan. If this is true, the right would accrue to other nations as well, and the same principle could with equal justice be maintained with respect to the rights of residence, etc., granted to Japan in Manchuria. There is a broader importance and significance attaching to this matter. A gifted Writer, in discussing the recent developments of Japanese policy, uses the following language:
* * * those who have been responsible for the framing of the new Japanese policy have held it essential to their plan to keep Europe and America chained to the principle of extraterritoriality, because that doctrine, imposing as it necessarily does mutual restrictions and mutual limitations in many fields, leaves it free to the Japanese to place themselves outside and beyond those restrictions and limitations, and by means of special zones and special weapons to extend their influence so widely that ultimately the treaty ports will be left isolated and at the mercy of the “higher machinery” which hegemony controls.68
It admits of no doubt that should the point be granted that special rights of residence, trade, professional activities, etc., can be given to any nation in any province in China without automatically accruing to other nations by virtue of the most favored nation clause, it would easily be possible, under a maintenance of the fabric of treaties confining extraterritorial privileges of residence to the open ports, to create a situation under which Europeans and Americans would be limited to certain areas, while the broader opportunities in the interior would be enjoyed by Japanese by virtue of special conventions and agreements.
In view of the importance of this matter, not only to American activities in Manchuria, but as a precedent for action affecting the rest of China, I have the honor to request your instructions as to whether the Legation is justified in maintaining that the rights granted to Japanese nationals in Manchuria with respect to matters affecting the status, residence and activities of individuals, accrue to the benefit of American citizens by virtue of the most favored nation clause.
I have [etc.]
- For. Rel. 1915, p. 172.↩
- For. Rel. 1916, p. 444.↩
- From an article entitled “Japanese Ambition “in the Peking Gazette of September 18, 1916, a copy of which is enclosed. Not printed.↩